Band marches home with a victory

Members of the first place LHS band pose proudly with their multiple trophies won at the Leesburg competition. (Photo: Lash)

The Lecanto High School band excelled in almost every part of their competition at Leesburg High School Saturday, Oct. 6, 2012, against bands from all over Florida.

LHS won first place in their class [2A] and made it to the finals, which was the top 10 schools, in any class, overall. The Panther band came in 6th place in the finals against more than 20 school marching bands.

“For the finals performance, the Lecanto Marching Band performed a breath-taking and emotional show called ‘Brave the Pressure,'” said band director Aaron Woodfin. “We won our class, 2A, and received the highest score in visual for the day, competing against over 20 bands.”

In that particular show, the bands performed in the afternoon “prelims” show and moved on to the finals.

The band director was thrilled that Lecanto was a part of the show.

“We were very excited that Lecanto was one of those bands,” said Woodfin.

Each band that performed went in front of nine judges; each scored a certain quality of the performances. These parts made up the entire score. The areas were color guard, percussion, drum major, individual music, ensemble music, individual visual, ensemble visual, general-effect music, and general-effect coordination.

“The judges actually record their comments and the Lecanto Band Staff will listen to the comments and see how we can improve the show,” said Woodfin.

For every band competition, there are student leaders who represent the marching band. The leader of the band [drum major] is senior Jose Gonzalez. Color guard leader is junior Amanda Carnevale.

“Both students [represented us] at the awards ceremony. We won first place in-group AA, and received best visual, best color guard, best percussion, best marching, and best in class. Overall, it was a great day for the students,” said Woodfin.

Students felt proud because their success was earned through practice and dedication.

“All our success is always earned. We worked really hard to get to finals and appreciate all the work and effort our leaders put into making our band strong,” said junior Melissa Higgins.

“We practice Tuesdays and Thursdays for three hours every week and put in many hours of individual sectional time. Woodfin continues to push us, and the competitive edge of this activity helps us realize all the teamwork and individual responsibility we will have as an adult,” said junior Tom Sawyer. “While the rehearsal is intense, the feeling that you get once you’ve performed and had an amazing show makes it all worthwhile.”

In this activity, consistency is key, and while the band may have done better this time than in the last competition, they are still practicing to be even more successful.

“If you work hard at something, you will see results. This is the logic of Lecanto’s Marching Band, and it works for us,” said Gonzalez.

“The great thing about being in Marching Band is that the more we practice, the more we improve as an entire group on our performance and execution of the music and choreography. In the end, the experience and the feeling that the students get once they compete is what we always focus on, not the awards and score,” said Woodfin.